The rate of abuse in the Catholic Church was not higher than in the public schools, boy scouts or religious institutions that are not Roman-Catholic, even when the abuse in the Roman Catholic Church was at its height in the 1980's.
Yet only the Roman Catholic priests are for the most part celibate. So how does celibacy have anything to do with it?
Did you read the post? Benedict XVI answered your question.
"[i]t would be extremely dangerous if celibacy became a sort of pretext for bringing people into priesthood who don't want to get married anyway."
He said this is 2010, after the Church was all but completely destroyed, for Pete's sake. The depths of the denial of reality here are difficult to fathom. Celibacy MIGHT become a pretext for gays to swamp the seminaries and worm their way into the hierarchy? That MIGHT happen some day?
Don't you get it? We have a GAY CLERGY. We have a Lavender Mafia (and BXVI might be the head of it, although I'm still giving him the benefit of the doubt). And the reason that we have a Lavender Mafia running the Church is that in the context of an industrialized society healthy and ambitious young men have lots of other career choices aside from the military, the Royal Bureaucracy, and the Church. This has been obvious for the past 70 years at least. Normal young men would prefer to go to graduate school and get married and have a family than live a life of self-denial in the priesthood. So, the number of vocations began to dry up, the seminaries with a wink-and-a-nudge began letting gays in to fill the gap. These gay men were ordained and then formed a network based on their common interests. They promoted each other. They protected each other. They subverted the healthy men who were willing to make the sacrifice of celibacy. They began to turn straight men away from the seminaries they controlled. As they gained power, they made sure that only their folks were in positions of power over other priests.
Bernadine. Weakland. The list goes on. These men perverted the seminaries, promoted the psychologically sick and protected the sexually criminal.
None of this would have happened if normal men had not been forced to choose between marriage and a nice career (open in modern society to nearly any young man intelligent enough to become a priest), as the homosexuals would have been prevented from taking over the commanding heights of the Church's earthly structure.
The only way to rid ourselves of this Lavender Mafia is to REQUIRE all new ordinations be granted EXCLUSIVELY to married men, as our Orthodox brothers require for parish priests.
If the Church would just do that, the priestly ranks would be swamped with healthy family men who would drive the Lavender Mafia into the ground. The Lavender Mafia knows this, which is why they like the celibacy rule so much and are willing to defend it at all costs. It's not that they believe in celibacy for themselves. They do believe in celibacy for heterosexuals, as a way to keep them out of the ranks of the clergy, which will ensure their continued power over us.
I mean, isn't this all obvious? Why can't we just admit this?
I agree. This thread seems to be nothing more than an opportunity for some good old catholic bashing. Pedophilia exists in all corners of society... married men are just as likely to be pedophile sodomists as unmarried men... Jerry Sandusky anyone?
Celibacy benefits the priesthood because it requires that the priest give his whole life for the church.. It is difficult to serve both a wife and family as well as the people of a parish where being their shepherd involves much more than just saying mass.
Sexual abuse of children is a horrible and evil thing and no institution has been immune. Anger toward the perpetrators and the church is understandable but to blame celibacy is misguided. The answer is not to allow for less self control amoungst priests...but exactly the opposite. The church must be very careful who is allowed into the seminary even when faced with the perception of dwindling vocations.
God has blessedly granted us free will and this includes the freedom of religion. No adult is forced to embrace or practice catholicism, but to those who chose not be be Catholic the decisions of Rome are no longer your concern.